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​Can Philosophy be
​Music without Words

A reflection after listening to Messiaen's 'Turangalîla-Symphonie'
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Finding God, Love And The Meaning Of Life
In Messiaen's 'Turangalîla-Symphonie'

aScott Simon's interview with Marin Alsop, music director of the Baltimore Symphony, Janury 12, 2019

​Marin Alsop: "In the end, Messiaen's music for me is almost more of a philosophy than a compositional process. It's driven by rigorous methodology, of course, but the impetus emanates from an approach to life based on faith and love."

Marin Alsop: "Messiaen's spirituality was about joy. And he was a man who felt that every human being had the potential to experience rapturous joy. And, you know, for a person who lived - he was a prisoner of war. And, you know, he maintained this sense of celebration and the belief, I think, in the human spirit and the human spirit as a spiritual entity. And that's how it feels. You know, it's almost like a drug-induced fervor at the end, you know, because it just keeps going, going, going, going. And then suddenly, a subito piano - quiet. And it just grows, explodes to the end. And it's a spectacular ending."

​Marin Alsop: "There is a distinct Eastern flavor to much of Turangalîla. Messiaen heard Balinese gamelan music at the Exposition Coloniale in Paris in 1931 and became obsessed with music from the East, particularly Indian music. He used pentatonic and octatonic scales, evoking the sound world of the Far East. But it was the Hindu rhythmic structures called talas that really drew him in. Talas are complex systems of rhythm created in Indian music using the power of math.

​Marin Alsop: Messiaen's music exudes a kind of spiritual ecstasy. "I am convinced that joy exists," he once said, "convinced that the invisible exists more than the visible, and that joy is beyond sorrow, and beauty is beyond horror."
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Messiaen seems to always be reaching towards an eternal light. He loved God in terms that were sensual, almost sexual. Human love and divine love were not opposites for him, but stages in a progression. In Turangalîla we can feel this spiritual ecstasy, especially in the fifth movement, called "Joie du Sang des Étoiles" (Joy of the Blood of the Stars) and in the finale. The repetitions, the kaleidoscopic colors and fevered dances carry us to an almost drug-induced frenzy.

​Marin Alsop: The word "tala" literally means to clap, but it also refers to any kind of musical meter — it doesn't have to be regular — and in a larger context, tala refers to the cycle of life. Messiaen avoided regular meter, feeling it was too artificial. He pointed out that in nature things are not at all regular. For example, the branches of a tree and the waves of the sea are not even patterns. In Turangalîla, his eclectic interests and influences result in repetitions, sudden shifts of tempo and overlapping ideas. Combined with the otherworldly sound of the ondes martenot, he creates a totally distinctive musical vocabulary.
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"Turangalîa" is a combination of Sanskrit words, and according to Messiaen, its meaning is almost untranslatable. "Lîla" literally means "play," but also refers to a sense of divine intervention in the universe. "Lîla" also means "love." "Turanga" is movement and rhythm, but also the passage of time. "Turangalîa," Messiaen once wrote, "means, all at the same time, song of love, hymn to joy, time, movement, rhythm, life and death." As you can tell, nothing is simple with Messiaen!

Can Philosophy be Music without Words?

I'm not just asking if philosophy can be communicated without words, as if the words are primary but nevertheless communicated in non-verbal ways: in music, for example. 

I'm asking if the love of wisdom, and the wisdom thus loved, might be in the music itself, because you hear in the music its ideas of God, love, beauty, terror, faith, doubt, and the meaning of life.

I can well imagine that if you did, you might not "understand" it in a conventional, verbal way.  That is, you might not be able to stand under the music, or perhaps more accurately over it, behold it, and say "look, let's get this clearly framed in our minds with more words."  No, the philosophy could not be understood in this verbal, enframing way. 

Still the philosophy might be felt, and in the feeling there might be a certain kind of understanding, albeit spiritual or emotional, not verbal.  The philosophy -- that is, the music -- would then functions as what Whitehead calls a lure for feeling: a proposal for how you might experience and respond to the world in a holistic way, honest to its beauty and terror, its potentials for agony and ecstasy.
 
True, it can help to have some simple words to name the feelings, if only as signposts.  The spiritual alphabet of Mary Ann and Frederic Brussat offers words. 

And the "words" of Marin Alsop, in her interview with NPR  are likewise very helpful. 

Meaning as Emotional Worlds

But...they are not the point  The meaning is in the emotional worlds the sounds contain and evoke, relative to the listener.

It is nice, but not necessary, if the feelings are shared.  It is nice, but not necessary, if you are sitting next to someone as you listen, and at certain points you turn to that person and nod your head in the sense of saying “yes” to what you hear. 

​But there need be no consensus of this sort, because the meanings are heard in an individualized way. 

This kind of philosophy  nwould not be the kind that is discussed in the university.  It would not written in texts. But you might hear this kind of philosophy, not only in massive works like Messiaen's 'Turangalîla-Symphonie,' but even in the simplest of melodies you hear on the radio, or everything in between.  Maybe the philosophy of music is really the philosophy in music -- and there may be as many different philosophies as there are listeners.

​Maybe.